"'But how is it going to beat Android or iOS?' That's the reaction many people have when I tell them that I am working on Firefox OS, the new mobile operating system from Mozilla. It is a logical reaction. After all, we live in times where every major software company and its mother is releasing a mobile platform, struggling to lure developers into their new proprietary environment, APIs, libraries, etc. And indeed, many of these companies barely make it or don’t make it at all. But Firefox OS will not be directly battling against other mobile platforms. Its main objective is to change the way the world develops mobile apps, and even in the unlikely event that Firefox OS itself disappears in the process, if web-apps become mainstream, it will have succeeded."

"'In your absence?' Unless you are younger than 8 years old, you must remember the state of the web in 2004, when Firefox first came out. Just compare that to how it is today, and you'll see that we have come a long way. Thanks to, for example, the guys at Mozilla, who freed us from the clutches of ActiveX and made using standard-complient web apps possible."

That's all well and good, except it's out of context and it has nothing to do with this article nor my post. The author was clearly talking about Firefox *OS* and how it would take on Android and iOS. I don't object to Firefox OS nor the Firefox browser btw, but to say it will be responsible for mainstreaming web apps *is* pretentious.

The Firefox *browser* might deserve some credit too, but it was really apple who took on the proprietary extensions like flash. I don't believe for a second that apple were being altruistic, but there you go.